Happy People
by jhalya
Summary: Sometimes, Ichigo takes his little sister for granted. Family Fic, Yuzucentric.


**A/N: Well, hi! This is a random oneshot I couldn't get out of my system till it got written. Don't think much of it, but be nice if you do! It's my first Bleach fic, so, by all means….Enjoy!**

**TIMELINE: Sometime post SS**

**DISCLAIMER: Tite Kubo and Skoop on Somebody, neither of which are me!**

_Everybody stand up,  
We're all fightin'.  
Inside we're all anxious,  
But keep your head right up,  
To the sky.  
What ever the time (Oh yeah)  
Wherever I am (Oh yeah)  
Just call me anytime (Oh yeah)  
I'll help you out!  
Happy peoples in the house,  
Wearin' a tough smile.  
Happy peoples in the house,  
We'll keep on livin'.  
Happy people.  
Happy people._

Yuzu did not sleep fitfully. On the contrary, she was the embodiment of innocent childlike slumber, all warm and cuddly underneath the light covers. She barely even stirred in her peaceful rest and could sleep her way safely to the mornings in the most unusual of positions. But, more often than not, she would just curl all kitty like in the exact center of her small bed (a feature Karin could and probably did calculate during an odd Math spurt when she was, oh, about nine), wheezing out small puffs of warm breath through her partly open lips and look all content.

Sure, there had been the prerequisite Boogie-Man-under-the-bed (and strangely enough never in the closet) episodes of shivers and wet sniffles, but with a parental figure like Daddy Kurosaki, ever ready to alleviate his precious daughter's bouts of frightened terror, all the while forgetting the light-haired little girl had a darker counterpart that did not appreciate being awoken in the wee hours of the morning slash night slash whatever by the more emotional and drama prone members of the Kurosaki family, Yuzu outgrew those pretty darn fast, as Karin would say so herself (very mutedly, of course, her sister did not take well to harsh language). Then again, Karin sort of snored – or breathed loudly, like she liked to phrase it, complete with a Ichigo-worthy-scowl – so she was bound to miss the occasional whimper that escaped Yuzu's suddenly tight lips on some nights.

But the happy child never seemed to recall her nightmares come morning. With her small bunched up hands she would rub her eyes in the sunlight and rub the fears behind them away, as well. There were things that needed to be done, cooking breakfast for her awakening family being the least of them. For example, Karin wasn't exactly crease-removal-oriented in making her bed. Sure, she made her bed alright, it just didn't look like it. It looked like she just pushed up the covers and sprinted on her surly way. Or, Daddy and his horrific Daddy-Kurosaki-Super-Devastation-Of-The-Bathroom. It was a small nuclear war every morning happening in there, complete with blood splatter once a month when Isshin actually shaved and consequently nicked an artery. Yuzu was not skittish, but what she did have was a lingering respect for properly hygienesed restroom facilities and her brother's sensitivity. Ichigo was not a morning person as it were, to actually wake up to the aftermath of Daddy's early forays in the bathroom would have been traumatizing. Yuzu liked her father, the poor innocent soul.

So it was, that if ever Yuzu had silly dreams that meant nothing during the night, they were promptly forgotten in the morning. Because, despite the tears she easily shed – very much unlike her sister – Yuzu was, in fact, a big girl. She knew such dark illusions haunting her sleep could not hurt her, they were just after effects of eating too much, or too late, or too spicy – her Onii-chan ate quite a lot lately, being a growing _man_ and all, as Daddy liked to point out with a snicker and a devilish glint in his crazy eyes, and she was rather fond of trying out what she cooked, just to check if it was alright for everyone and their respective allergies and alimentary dislikes. And there was, of course, the firm belief that little Yuzu kept close in her heart: that she had grown up with strong people that would never ever let anything happen to her. She owed them to be strong in return, even if it was just in a small matter such as this.

Therefore, Yuzu Kurosaki never slept fitfully. And if she ever did, it wasn't like anyone could tell.

But this one night, in this one moment of weakness, little Yuzu woke up with a fright the likes of which she had never experienced. It was visceral, so much so that the light-haired girl felt a sudden urge to get up and look the word in the dictionary and compare diagnostics. Karin and her reassuring _loud breathing_ was a comforting presence in the dark of the room, where no one – _no one else_ – was hiding. But the dream hadn't been about her, about neither of the twins. Yuzu clutched her hand on her small beating heart, willing the panic that had settled in with a vengeance to quiet down. It didn't happen.

There was only one thing she could think of doing. One thing she hadn't done in years, for fear of her twin's reproachful snorts. Because Yuzu was not as self-sufficient as Karin let out she'd be. She needed to randomly hug her Daddy once in while. She needed to pounce on her bristling dark-haired counterpart and get a smile and a shove – a smiling shove – from her Karin-chan. Or a wink from her Onii-chan.

_That_, that could fuel her merriness for months on end. Sure Ichigo was good with kids. He'd ruffle their hair and they'd be happy. But he'd only wink at her, especially when she'd have this deep-set feeling that compared to her rather surly ghost-seeing siblings, she was somehow different. After all, she was the only one who could put up with their father for prolonged periods of time.

She was the one prone to show her emotions more often than not.

She was the one who goofed around with Daddy and a radio when Karin was out playing soccer.

Needless to say, they both had terrible voices.

So, when Ichigo caught them one day and she felt embarrassed in front of her frowning brother, nothing, nothing could shake the feeling she had somehow disappointed him. Well, nothing but a most uncommon wink she almost missed with her teary vision as Ichigo proceeded on implanting his foot in his father's face. A nosebleeding Isshin later, Onii-chan walked past her and tenderly ruffled her hair with a quiet chuckle and disappeared upstairs. Yuzu was practically bouncing all the way through dinner.

But that hadn't happened in a long time. And now this dream…this nightmare…all the weird things going one that Yuzu was careful to not pay much attention to…all of it suddenly ganged up on her and broke her resolve. Ever so slowly, she crept out of her bed, lest she molest her slumbering and blissfully unaware sister, and stepped through the door into the darkened hallway. The walls rattled a bit with her father's snoring, but the room to which she was headed to was quiet as can be. She paused in front of the dangling 15 mark and thought twice about entering. She had taken to the habit of knocking on Ichigo's door whenever she wanted admittance that was not warranted by the probability of Daddy being shot. She wasn't quite sure why and hesitated asking Daddy. He had dropped enough hints about teenage boys and their ways as it is, but Yuzu didn't acknowledge that was all there was to it. Sometimes she had the feeling her Onii-chan had grown in more ways than what her father was none to subtlely implying. And never until now had she thought he had grown in a _bad_ way. But the dream…it gnawed at her.

She pushed in. The door opened soundlessly and she found herself in her brother's moonlit room. Ichigo had forgotten to draw the curtains.

Yuzu knew he sometimes liked to sleep a suffocation induced coma type of sleep, buried underneath his covers, due to many weekend mornings when he was too lazy to get up and she needed to do his laundry. But tonight instead of the lump-that-was-Ichigo she just gazed at the form of her sleeping brother, one hand on his pillow, the other holding off the covers on his mid-section like they were about to jump him at any given moment, drool pooling on his left side. At least he was in his room, as Yuzu thought for some unfathomable reason that he wouldn't be. That he'd be gone away. She had to be sure, though, so she tiptoed her way to the side of his bed for a closer inspection and shuddered.

In the pale moonlight, he looked as pale and ghostly as the tormentor in her nightmare. Her entire body shook and she was pretty sure her teeth were clattering.

Someone had taken her brother away!

Something had replaced her big brother with this cold, vicious, _bleached_ replica of her Onii-chan!

Just like in her dream!

And just like in her dream, he would jump at her anytime now and hurt her and Karin-chan and Daddy with his clawed fingers!

The child whimpered in fear and tears streamed down her face.

Ichigo merely sighed in his sleep and drooled some more.

Little Yuzu was struggling with a decision. One thing, and probably the only real thing, she had always been stubborn about, even when Karin scoffed and tried to wean it off her, was her attachment to her Onii-chan. She didn't act on it as much as she used to. But Karin-chan had frequently put it bluntly to her that it was time she got independent from "Onii-chan".

She had been his little princess since infancy. Karin was too much of a tomboy to feel jealous about that, but Yuzu often acted dejectedly uncharacteristic around friends of Ichigo's. More so if they happened to be girls. She had lost a mother. In her childlike mind, she didn't want to loose a brother – _the brother ­–_ to someone unworthy. Like that thing that had drove her out of bed and into his room in the dead of the night just to check if he was alright, despite the threat to her wellbeing. She never let things like this trouble her. A crying face meant an overly-wounded-looking Ichigo. She had the feeling her brother kind of depended on her constant happiness and good-willed nature.

With at least a part of her resolve slowly rebuilt, she extended a shaking hand to Ichigo's unruly hair, glowing dimly in the faint light. She closed her eyes in anticipation of the cold, steely spikes from her nightmare, but found only the softness of her brother's bed hair.

Yuzu held back a wail.

It was him, after all!

Think if he had woken up, how silly she would have looked, a silly 11 years old girl, still crying over silly nightmare!

Yuzu curled her little hand in his larger one. He was warm and strong, even in his sleep. She felt instantly comforted. Even smiled a teary smile at Ichigo's drooling mouth. And then promptly squeaked when Ichigo's hand closed in on hers.

"Yuzu."

"O-Onii…chan." The little girl stammered between sobs and sniffles.

Ichigo had not been completely awake when calling out his sister's name, but hearing her cry washed the sleepiness from his mind right off.

"What's the matter? What happened?" he asked while rubbing away at his bleary eyes, his hand still gently holding Yuzu's.

"B-bad dr..dream."

There! She could be brave enough to admit it.

Ichigo sensed the unusual anxiety in his little sister. She would not have marched up to his room – apparently unaccompanied, as he deduced after doing a quick search for the other twin – on a whim. And her little body was shivering like mad, her eyes huge and watery, rivulets of salty liquid incessantly marring her pale cheeks. The look she kept giving him, like she was trying to see through him, shook Ichigo something fierce. Never in a million years would he have thought he would ever receive such a reaction from Yuzu. It was Karin who was generally more receptive of such things. But Karin never looked at him with such a scared face. For, sure enough, in Yuzu's darker eyes there was the underlying sense of fear. Something had frightened away her cheery disposition.

"It was just a dream," he said dumbly.

Yuzu nodded her head, eyes still fixed on him.

She gulped once and said in a breathy whisper:

"Onii-chan….pull the curtains…closed."

Ichigo blinked once and then twice. He turned around, rather dumbfounded, to look out on his window as if whatever was scaring Yuzu was hovering around there somewhere. He knew better, after all.

"Why?" he looked hard but could not see it, for all his worth. Just the peacefully sleeping neighborhood.

"'Cause you look like a ghost…in this light…brother."

He spun so fast, he almost toppled out of bed. A fresh stream of tears erupted on Yuzu's face. Last thing she wanted was her Onii-chan to be mad at her and her antics.

But the dream had been so real!

And now Ichigo was looking at her like he knew _exactly_ what it had been like.

This time she did wail. And the closet door did some movement of its own.

The Kurosaki siblings were none the wiser.

Ichigo had regained some of his composure and without letting go of his sister's hand, he placed her in front of him and began drying away her tears with his thumb.

"Yuzu", he gently called.

She acknowledged her name, but kept her eyes scrunched shut.

"Have you had this dream before?" It was a small miracle, Ichigo thought, he didn't stutter.

At this, Yuzu had to stop. Had she? But her Onii-chan understood from her hesitation.

It had never bothered her enough to seek him out.

His brave little Yuzu, Ichigo sighed inwardly. Sometimes he just took her for granted.

"I haven't been much of a big brother to you lately, have I?"

He barely registered he said that out loud.

But Yuzu just crawled up in his arms in response, freed her hand from that of a startled Ichigo's and gave him a teddy-bear hug.

"Sometimes it's tough to smile."

There were clear sounds of sniffling that Ichigo could feel permeate his t-shirt.

"But if _you_ will be strong, then _I _will be strong too." The little girl in Ichigo's arms mumbled into his chest.

Ichigo's heart could have stopped in that moment. From across the room, peeping through the closet door, someone under the cover of darkness was smiling softly at the young girl who did not deserve her clothes being stolen on regular basis and who loved her big brother oh so very much.

Said big brother was - in return – unconsciously rocking the child to sleep and humming to himself.

It was a long time before Yuzu spoke again:

"Do you want to be strong, Onii-chan?"

In the most selfless act Ichigo had never thought he would be capable of, chucking down mountains of pride that made him who he was, he turned to scrap of a little girl that looked up to him like he set the moon and the stars in the sky and said:

"I want you to be strong, little Yuzu."

Nothing, nothing in this world, not even a nightmare and the evilness that had haunted her this night would ever hurt Yuzu again. Because for her brother to trust her like that, Yuzu would do anything! She giggled girlishly and gave him the starry eyed look:

"Onii-chan, just call Yuzu-chan anytime and Yuzu-chan will help you out! I pwomise!" she baby-talked like she used to do all those years ago when everything they had was each other…and their crazy Daddy.

Ichigo grinned at her and ruffled her hair and picked her up and tucked her to bed.

In his bed.

It was too late in the night – or early in the morning – to deal with an inevitably questioning Karin. With a warning scowl sent to the incognito occupant of his closet, followed by a soft swish and click, Ichigo settled down at Yuzu's tiny feet and watched her contentedly drifting off to her happy land.

That night, Yuzu did not sleep fitfully. At all.

In the morning, Karin woke up to an un-made Yuzu-less bed.

She freaked out.

Some things were just not right and a room without her twin sleeping soundly this early was one of them.

She barged in the hallway, passed her vocalizing father in the shower and went straight to Ichi-nii's bedroom to report Yuzu missing. But sure enough, both her light-haired siblings were asleep on Ichigo's rather small bed. Her brother's feet were dangling off the edge, his body at an odd angle, with Yuzu's tinier feet tangled in his orange hair, both sporting similar sleepy-droolly faces, the blue cover bunched up on the floor. Ichigo's hand cradled the smaller one of his sister's.

Karin smiled despite herself.

They looked happy.

**PS: Sorry about the OOC-ness. Don't forget to review, m'kay?**


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